About this product: A GROUNDBREAKING BOOK about the modern presidency, The Clinton Tapes invites readers into private dialogue with a gifted, tormented, resilient President of the United States. Here is what President Clinton thought and felt but could not say in public.
This book rests upon a secret project, initiated by Clinton, to preserve for future historians an unfiltered record of presidential experience. During his eight years in office, between 1993 and 2001, Clinton answered questions and told stories in the White House, usually late at night. His friend Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch recorded seventy-nine of these dialogues to compile a trove of raw information about a presidency as it happened. Clinton drew upon the diary transcripts for his memoir in 2004.
Branch recorded his own detailed recollections immediately after each session, covering not only the subjects discussed but also the look and feel of each evening with the president. The text engages Clinton from many angles. Readers hear candid stories, feel buffeting pressures, and weigh vivid descriptions of the White House settings.
Branch's firsthand narrative is confessional, unsparing, and personal. The author admits straying at times from his primary role -- to collect raw material for future historians -- because his discussions with Clinton were unpredictable and intense. What should an objective prompter say when the President of the United States seeks advice, argues facts, or lodges complaints against the press? The dynamic relationship that emerges from these interviews is both affectionate and charged, with flashes of anger and humor. President Clinton drives the history, but this story is also about friends.
The Clinton Tapes highlights major events of Clinton's two terms, including wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, the failure of health care reform, peace initiatives on three continents, the anti-deficit crusade, and titanic political struggles from Whitewater to American history's second presidential impeachment trial. Along the way, Clinton delivers colorful portraits of countless political figures and world leaders from Nelson Mandela to Pope John Paul II.
These unprecedented White House dialogues will become a staple of presidential scholarship. Branch's masterly account opens a new window on a controversial era and Bill Clinton's eventual place among our chief executives.
About this product: A best seller for years, Susan Branch brings us Heart of the Home. This calendar features original artwork accompanied by inspirational thoughts and quotes in her trademark hand-written style. This delightful calendar will warm the heart, comfort the soul, and bring smiles to the whole family.
About this product: Celebrate fall with Susan Branchs first all-new, large- format work in four years--a brightly illustrated and lovingly designed, full-color paean to autumn.
Susan Branchs long-awaited autumn book picks up where The Summer Book left off, featuring more of the delicious, easy recipes and inspirational ideas that have won her an enthusiastic and growing following. AUTUMN FROM THE HEART OF THE HOME is a bountiful harvest of appetizing recipes, imaginative menus, and homemade autumn arts. Full of cozy projects, thoughtful gifts such as the Sniffle Basket and the Sunday Breakfast kit, seasonal decorating and entertaining ideas, Halloween and Thanksgiving inspirations, and garden tips, AUTUMN FROM THE HEART OF THE HOME features mouthwatering recipes for Touchdown Chili, Butternut Shotglass Soup, Iowa Corn Bread, Savory Sage Riblets, Harvest Stew, Grandmas Stuffing, Curried Pumpkin Pots, Ginger Crisps, and of course, Hot Chocolate. Illustrated with glorious watercolors and handwritten in Susan Branchs trademark style, this beautiful new book is a sensational addition to the Susan Branch collection.
About this product: Many critics attack federal judges as anti-democratic elitists, activists out of step with the mainstream of American thought. But others argue that judges should stand alone as the ultimate guardians of American values, placing principle before the views of the people. In The Most Democratic Branch, Jeffrey Rosen disagrees with both assertions. Contrary to what interest groups may claim, he contends that, from the days of John Marshall right up to the present, the federal courts by and large have reflected the opinions of the mainstream. More important, he argues that the Supreme Court is most successful when it defers to the constitutional views of the American people, as represented most notably by Congress and the Presidency. And on the rare occasion when they departed from the consensus, the result has often been a disaster. To illustrate, Rosen provides a penetrating look at some of the most important Supreme Court cases in American history--cases involving racial equality, affirmative action, abortion, gay rights and gay marriage, the right to die, electoral disputes, and civil liberties in wartime. Rosen shows that the most notorious constitutional decisions in American history--the ones that have been most strenuously criticized, such as Dred Scott or Roe v. Wade--have gone against mainstream opinion. By contrast, the most successful decisions--from Marbury v. Madison to Brown v. Board of Education--have avoided imposing constitutional principles over the wishes of the people. Rosen concludes that the judiciary works best when it identifies the constitutional principles accepted by a majority of Americans, and enforces them unequivocally as fundamental law. Jeffrey Rosen is one of the most respected legal experts writing today, a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and the Legal Affairs Editor of The New Republic. The provocative arguments that he puts forth here are bound to fuel heated debate at a time when the federal judiciary is already the focus of fierce criticism.
About this product: Pillar of Fire is the second volume of Taylor Branch's magisterial three-volume history of America during the life of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Branch's thesis, as he explains in the introduction, is that "King's life is the best and most important metaphor for American history in the watershed postwar years," but this is not just a biography. Instead it is a work of history, with King at its focal point. The tumultuous years that Branch covers saw the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the beginnings of American disillusionment with the war in Vietnam, and, of course, the civil rights movement that King led, a movement that transformed America as the nation finally tried to live up to the ideals on which it was founded.
About this product: A hand-decorated miniature book of recipes for Christmas cookies and candy-covered wreaths, decorative snowflakes, gift ideas, and holiday trivia makes a delightful stocking stuffer. 75,000 first printing.
About this product: The Broken Branch offers both a brilliant diagnosis of the cause of Congressional decline and a much-needed blueprint for change, from two experts who understand politics and revere our institutions, but believe that Congress has become deeply dysfunctional. Mann and Ornstein, two of the nation's most renowned and judicious scholars of government and politics, bring to light the historical roots of Congress's current maladies, examining 40 years of uninterrupted Democratic control of the House and the stunning midterm election victory of 1994 that propelled Republicans into the majority in both House and Senate. The byproduct of that long and grueling but ultimately successful Republican campaign, the authors reveal, was a weakened institution bitterly divided between the parties. They highlight the dramatic shift in Congress from a highly decentralized, committee-based institution into a much more regimented one in which party increasingly trumps committee. The resultant changes in the policy process--the demise of regular order, the decline of deliberation, and the weakening of our system of checks and balances--have all compromised the role of Congress in the American Constitutional system. From tax cuts to the war against Saddam Hussein to a Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Legislative process has been bent to serve immediate presidential interests and have often resulted in poorly crafted and stealthily passed laws. Strong majority leadership in Congress, the authors conclude, led not to a vigorous exertion of congressional authority but to a general passivity in the face of executive power.
About this product: From the author of the hugely popular Heart of the Home series comes a brand new, delightfully illustrated five-year memory book for the holidays, which Susan Branch fans will enthusiastically make part of their annual Christmas tradition. Christmas Memories is a highly interactive keepsake book about the joys of the holiday season, with new watercolours created especially for this book. It will be a familys 5-year record of their holiday seasons. For each of the five years, Christmas Memories will feature areas for readers to write in how each Christmas is special, as well as places to include the annual holiday photo, card, letters to Santa, and other cherished mementos. Families can record their traditions around: The Tree, Christmas Eve, Morning, and Day, and Christmas Dinner and Grace, Special Gifts to and from Special People, Special Parties, and New Years. The book will also include each years Christmas favourites: Decorations, Books, CDs, Movies, Stories, Carols, Recipes, and Collections. An aggressive licensing program is underway; existing licenses include stationery and cards, matted prints, personalized checks, fabric, scrapbooking and craft products, and kitchen accessories.
BOOK
